The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 28 June 2000
by Peter Mayle
This is pretty light reading. A photographer for DQ magazine, which seems a cross between Architectural Digest and Town and Country, is sent off to the south of France to photograph a few ancient icons in an old farmhouse. Deciding to drop in on an acquaintance, perhaps hoping for romantic dalliance, he finds a beautiful Cézanne painting leaving the premises in a plumbing truck. There would be other opportunities for romantic dalliances in this story. What he witnesses, though, propels Andre Kelley into a web of art dealing and theft. And he may never know that he is intricately involved in the plot. This plot, though, seems almost a backdrop for Mayle's real topic, which is his deep and abiding love for his characters and the French landscape in which they move. In pursuit of the Cézanne, the story flies back and forth across the Atlantic, and up and down France, from Paris to Aix, to Nice and Cap Ferrat. For one chapter, though, Mayle is distracted in Britain, where he takes the opportunity to savage the English and their gloomy environment. Aside from that, though, the author indulges his adoration for French cuisine and its beautiful countryside. There is little mystery in the plot, which is OK in this entertaining romp around the world of art, the rich, and the romance of Paris in the spring.
Also by Mayle: [A Year in Provence]